The Ai Initiative

Civic Debate on the Governance of AI

Who we are

The AI Initiative is an initiative of The Future Society at Harvard Kennedy School dedicated to the rise of Artificial Intelligence.

Created in 2015, it gathers students, researchers, alumni, faculty and experts from Harvard and beyond, interested in understanding the consequences of the rise of Artificial Intelligence.

Its mission is to help shape the global AI policy framework.

Recommendations

Improvements and convergences in machine learning and neurosciences combined with the availability of massive datasets and the ubiquity of high-performance scalable computing are propelling us into a new age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The promise these developments hold is immense; so too are the risks.

These challenges require both immediate and future action. Computing systems are already outperforming humans in many tasks that profoundly shape our everyday lives in the fields of transportation, communication, energy, finance, healthcare as well as defense and security. There are clear upsides and opportunities, but the unintended socio-political consequences are serious, disrupting the fabric of our social contracts, sense of human identity, dignity, and considerations of agency and personal empowerment. Also visible on the horizon is the existential challenge posed by the possible emergence within this century of superintelligent machines, which would be vastly superior in scale and speed to a human brain or even a collective of brains.

While experts differ in their predictions as to the likelihood of this development, the velocity, complexity and magnitude of the current global race for Artificial Intelligence necessitates that leaders and policymakers begin developing a coherent and actionable response. Underestimating the impact of AI in the short, mid and long term is unwise and potentially dangerous.

CONVENE: Organize a yearly meeting that brings together an inclusive interdisciplinary working group of stakeholders (public and private sectors, academia, civil society) and experts that can interpret disruptive shifts in AI technology.

IMPLEMENT: Help world policymakers from all branches of governments and associated stakeholders (corporations and civil society) implement agreed upon rules and regulations at local and international levels.

Governments & Policymakers

Because of its key role in enabling societal transformation using technology innovation, Silicon Valley is often believed to be the principal source of techno-scientific revolutions. Policymakers seem left behind corporations which increasingly set trends and rules. However governments have historically played and will continue to play a key role in spurring the rise of AI through the allocation of Research & Development budgets for defense, security, healthcare, science and technology (especially computer science and neuroscience), infrastructure (especially transport, energy and banking) and through pro-innovation policies as regulation of uses and applications..

The existing processes and tools of modern deliberation and international cooperation need to be leveraged. However, they may not be sufficient to help humanity drive the transformation in front of us. Growing our collective wisdom to confront the rise of AGI will require innovating new governance frameworks, processes and tools. Humanity will need to rely on a mix of artificial and collective intelligence. The “global multi-stakeholder regime complex” currently emerging to govern cyberspace and new forms of distributed autonomous organizations such as the blockchain infrastructure should serve as inspirations.

Thematics

Team

Executive Team

Cyrus Hodes

Director and Co-Founder, The AI InitiativeVice-President, The Future Society

Cyrus is passionate about drastically disruptive technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics, nanotech, biotech, genetics, IT and cognitive sciences as well as their cross-pollination and impacts on society. He is currently leading a robotics (Autonomous Guided Vehicles) startup and a biotech venture.
In 2015, Cyrus founded the AI Initiative, which he manages, by engaging a wide range of global stakeholders to study, discuss and help shape the governance of AI. Cyrus and the AI Initiative did, and continue to do so, through various international policy platforms (OEDC, HKS Forums, Japanese MIC, French Parliament, etc.) as well as AI ethics and safety initiatives.
Cyrus spearheads several projects using innovative tools (such as the Global Civic Debate and its multilingual collective intelligence platform on the governance of AI) and works at using AI and Machine Learning to tackle policy issues.
He is a Vice President at The Future Society 501(c)(3) and is a member of two Committees (Policy, and General Principles) of the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems.
Cyrus was educated at Sciences Po Paris, where he later was a Lecturer, holds a M.A. (Hons) from Paris II University in Defense, Geostrategy and Industrial Dynamics and a M.P.A. for Harvard Kennedy School.

Nicolas Miailhe

Co-Founder, The AI InitiativeCo-Founder and President The Future Society

Nicolas co-founded “The Future Society at HKS” in 2014 and has taken a leadership role in developing it since as he believes it is of paramount important to politicize the stakes of the technological explosion we are going through. A recognized strategist, businessman, thought-leader and social entrepreneur, Nicolas has over ten years of professional experience working at the nexus of innovation, high technology, government, industry and civil society across various continents. In 2012 he convened “People for Global Transformation” which brings together 15 leading voices from across the globe to help shape the 21st century’s discourse on global development and governance, placing the transformative power of technology at the center of the reflection. He is currently a Senior Visiting Research Fellow with the Program on Science, Technology and Society at HKS, and a Fellow with the Institute for Data Driven Design affiliated with the MIT Media Lab. He was previously Research Fellow with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at HKS. His work focuses on the governance of emerging technologies, urban innovation and civic engagement.

Simon Mueller

Co-founderThe Future Society at HKS

Simon co-founded the Future Society at Harvard Kennedy School in 2014 because of his firm belief that the rapid development of technology in our days poses unparalleled challenges for public decision makers and corporate leaders. Before grad school, he spent three years advising international companies on operational and strategic issues. At Harvard, Simon focused on strategic decision making, advanced analytics and public performance management. Simon is the General Manager of the BCG Henderson Institute, BCG's strategy think tank in New York City.

Arohi Jain Rajvanshi

Project LeaderThe AI Initiative

Arohi is an Economist with an acute interest in harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence to create positive social impact, especially in developing conomies.
Passionate about social change, Arohi previously held the position of Senior Strategist at a London based start-up, focusing on building global digital campaigns on topics such as youth rights and gender equality for a wide range of non-profits and foundations. Prior to this, Arohi was in the Finance industry, most recently at a large US Investment Fund. Arohi is a graduate of the University of Warwick, with a Bachelor of Science in Economics, where she led extensive research into the economics of incentives.

Caroline Jeanmaire

Caroline holds a Dual-Master’s degree in International Relations from Sciences Po (France) and Peking University (China), as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Sciences Po. Her thesis at Peking University on the Chinese new leadership position in international negotiations won the school’s Distinction Award. She has also studied at Tufts University and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Since 2015, she has taken part in international negotiations at the United Nations, as a Youth Delegate within the French delegation, advocating for the right of future generations. She is intent on strengthening international coordination in the development of AI, with a focus on ethics and collective intelligence.

Yolanda Lannquist

Yolanda conducts labor market policy research including the impact of AI-enabled automation on the workforce. She has a Master in Public Policy (2015) from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and European Studies from Columbia University with Phi Beta Kappa honors.
Yolanda previously advised Fortune 500 multinationals on innovation and market entry strategy as a business consultant in Copenhagen. She also worked on trade and business regulation at the U.S. Embassy in Paris and authored several reports on global labor market trends at The Conference Board in New York. Yolanda is Turkish-American and is based in Bucharest, Romania.

Senior Advisors

Joseph S. Nye Jr.

University Distinguished Service ProfessorFormer DeanHarvard Kennedy School of Government

Joseph Nye received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Princeton University,won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, and earned a PhD in political science from Harvard. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. His most recent books include The Power to Lead; The Future of Power; Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era; and Is the American Century Over. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. In a recent survey of international relations scholars, he was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers.

Lan Xue

Dr. Lan XUE is a Cheung Kong Chair Professor and Dean of School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University. With a Ph. D in public policy from Carnegie Mellon University, he taught at the George Washington University before returning back to China in 1996. His teaching and research interests include public policy analysis, STI policy, crisis management, and global governance. He has published widely in these areas, including, Risk Governance on Climate Change, which was published in 2014 by Science Press of China, and Globalization of Science and Technology and its Influence on China’s Development, which was published in 2015 by Tsinghua University Press.

He also serves as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of Brookings Institution. His many public service appointments include a member of the National Committee for Strategic Consultation and Comprehensive Review, a member of the Expert Committee on Emergency Management of the State Council of China, a member of the advisory board of China’s Health System Reform, the Convener of the State Council Academic Assessment Committee for Public Administration, Vice President of China Association of Public Administration, a member of United Nations University Council, and. Since 2012, he has been the Co-Chair of the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solution Network (SDSN). He is a recipient of the Fudan Distinguished Contribution Award for Management Science.

Brice Lalonde

Université Paris-Sorbonne

Brice Lalonde is the former UN Assistant Secretary-General, Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Prior to this appointment Mr. Lalonde served as French Ambassador for climate change, French Minister for the Environment, Chairman of the Round Table for Sustainable Development at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and Senior Adviser for the Environment to the French Government. In addition, he held the position of Director of the Paris office of the Institute for a European Environment Policy. Mr. Lalonde has also worked for non-governmental organizations, like Friends of the Earth. He is now President of the Business and Climate Summit.

John C. Havens

John is Executive Director of The Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in the Design of Autonomous Systems, an Industry Connections Program of the IEEE Standards Association. It was formed with two primary deliverables: create a document featuring key issues in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems (AI/AS) grounded in ethically-aligned design; and, make Standard Project recommendations to IEEE-SA based on these issues. The Initiative is guided by over one hundred thought leaders with a mission of ensuring every technologist is educated, trained, and empowered to prioritize ethical considerations in the design and development of autonomous and intelligent systems.

Laurent Alexandre

A surgeon-urologist and a neurobiologist, Laurent Alexandre is also a graduate of Science Po, HEC and ENA. An internet pioneer, he is the founder of Doctissimo.fr. Author of "The Death of Death" and "The Defeat of Cancer", he is interested today in the disruptive power brought upon by the NBIC. Laurent also manages DNAVision, a company specializing in DNA sequencing.

Geoff Mulgan

Chief Executive of Nesta

Geoff is an adviser to many governments around the world. From 2013-16, under Mayor Boris Johnson, he was co-chair of the London Enterprise Panel committee responsible for science and technology in London. He has been a board member of many organizations including the Work Foundation, Big Society Capital, the Health Innovation Council, Political Quarterly, the Design Council, Atomium Culture, and Involve. He is a co-founder and current board member of organizations including the global Social Innovation Exchange, Studio Schools Trust, Uprising and Action for Happiness. He has been a visiting professor at LSE, UCL, Melbourne University and a regular lecturer at the China Executive Leadership Academy.

From 2015-2018 Geoff is a senior visiting scholar at Harvard University, in the Ash Center at the Kennedy School. From 2016 Geoff is co-chair of a new World Economic Forum group looking at innovation and entrepreneurship in the fourth industrial revolution. He is also member of the board of the French government’s French Digital Agency; a member of an Academy of Medical Science’s review of public health; the Scottish Government’s CAN-DO panel; chair of an international advisory committee for the Mayor of Seoul and member of an advisory committee in the Prime Minister’s office in UAE.

Jaan Tallinn

Jaan Tallinn is a founding engineer of Skype and Kazaa. He is a co-founder of the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (cser.org), Future of Life Institute (futureoflife.org), and philanthropically supports other existential risk research organizations. Jaan is on the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (thebulletin.org) and has served on the Estonian President's Academic Advisory Board. He is also an active angel investor, a partner at Ambient Sound Investments (asi.ee), and a former investor in and director of the AI company DeepMind (deepmind.com).

Wendell Wallach

Chair Technology and Ethics StudiesYale University Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics

Wendell Wallach specializes in the ethics and governance of emerging technologies. Contributions to robotics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, biotechnology, technology policy, ethics, and philosophy have established him as a transdisciplinary scholar. He co-authored (with Colin Allen, Indiana University) Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong, which mapped the new field variously known as machine morality, machine ethics, and values alignment. The more recent A Dangerous Master: How to keep technology from slipping beyond our control is a primer on emerging technologies and their societal impact. In addition to his Yale affiliation, he is a senior advisor to The Hastings Institute, a fellow at the Center for Law and Innovation at the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law (ASU), and a fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

Nicolas Economou

Chairman & CEOH5

Nicolas Economou is the chief executive of H5 and was a pioneer in advocating the application of scientific methods to electronic discovery. He contributes actively to advancing dialogue on public policy challenges at the intersection of law, science, and technology. He is a Senior Advisor to the Artificial Intelligence Initiative of the Future Society at Harvard Kennedy School, the chair of the Future Society’s Science, Law and Society Initiative, and a member of the Law Committee of the IEEE’s Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems. Nicolas has been featured in Forbes magazine and is the author of a number of published articles on issues relating to technology and the practice of law. He has spoken before legal audiences at a wide variety of conferences and organizations, including Stanford Law School and the American Bar Association, and appeared with United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer at a groundbreaking summit hosted by Georgetown University Law Center and moderated by Arthur R. Miller, the Bruce Bromley Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (“And Justice for All: How the Electronic Information Explosion is Transforming the American Legal System”). Nicolas was a member of the Law and Judiciary policy committee for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. Trained in political science at the Graduate Institute of International Studies of the University of Geneva (Switzerland), he earned his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business, and chose to forgo completion of his M.P.A at Harvard’s Kennedy School in order to co-found H5.

Senior Scientific Advisors

James Waldo

Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer ScienceHarvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied ScienceChief Technological Officer, Harvard University

Jim Waldo is the Chief Technology Officer for Harvard University, where he is responsible for for the architecture and implementation of the technology environment. He is also a Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he teaches courses in distributed systems and privacy. Jim has designed clouds at VMware, and was a Distinguished Engineer with Sun Microsystems Laboratories, where he investigated next-generation large-scale distributed systems. His last project at Sun Labs was Darkstar. Prior to (re)joining Sun Labs, he was the lead architect for Jini, a distributed programming system based on Java. Jim edited the book The Evolution of C++: Language Design in the Marketplace of Ideas (MIT Press), co-edited Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age (National Academies Press), and was one of the authors of The Jini Specification (Addison Wesley). More recently, he authored Java: The Good Parts. He is currently a member of the editorial boards of Queue magazine and the Communication of the ACM. He also holds over 50 patents. He is currently a member of the editorial boards of Queue magazine and the Communication of the ACM. He also holds over 50 patents. Jim received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). He also holds M.A. degrees in both linguistics and philosophy from the University of Utah.

Illah R. Nourbakhsh

Professor of RoboticsCarnegie Mellon University

Illah R. Nourbakhsh is Professor of Robotics, Director of the Community Robotics, Education, and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) Lab and Head of the Robotics Master's Program at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. He is author of Parenting for Technology Futures, Robot Futures and Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots. He was previously Lead of the Robotics Group at NASA/Ames Research Center.

Richard Mallah

Director of Artificial Intelligence ProjectsFuture of Life Institute

Richard is Director of AI Projects at the Future of Life Institute, where he works to support the robust, safe, beneficent development of both short-term and long-term artificial intelligence via analysis, metaresearch, organization, research direction, and advocacy. Among his research interests at FLI are multiobjective ethical ensembles, semantic overlay of subsymbolic and neuromorphic processes, and dynamic roadmapping of the future. Mallah also heads research in AI at knowledge integration platform firm Cambridge Semantics, Inc., as Director of Advanced Analytics, leading R&D of technologies for knowledge representation, machine learning including deep learning, computational linguistics, conceptual middleware, and automated systems generation. He is an advisor to other nonprofits and companies where he advises on AI, knowledge management, and sustainability. He has over fifteen years’ experience in AI algorithms development, product team management, and CTO-level roles. Richard holds a degree in intelligent systems and computer science from Columbia University.

Bill Hibbard

Emeritus Senior ScientistUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison

Bill Hibbard is an Emeritus Senior Scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Space Science and Engineering Center working on visualization and machine intelligence. Dr. Hibbard is principal author of the Vis5D, Cave5D and VisAD open source visualization systems. He is also author of papers about machine intelligence and of Ethical Artificial Intelligence, available here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.1373

Nell Watson

Adjunct Faculty, AI & RoboticsSingularity University

Nell Watson is an engineer, entrepreneur, and futurist thinker who grew up in Northern Ireland. She has founded a series of companies that leverage the power of machine learning, and is a patent holder in original technologies within machine vision, and actively researches areas such as machine ethics. Nell is an advisory technologist to several startups, accelerators, and venture capital funds, and lectures globally on Machine Intelligence, AI philosophy, Human-Machine relations, and the Future of Human Society.

Nozha Boujemaa

Research Director at Inria, Director of DATAIA Institute (Data Sciences, Intelligence & Society), Project leader of TransAlgo scientific platform for algorithmic systems transparency and accountability. Formerly, Advisor to the Chairman and the CEO of Inria in Data Science with concern to the socioeconomic impact of Big Data and AI capabilities, Scientific Head of IMEDIA research group for over 10 years (till 2010) and the Director of Inria Saclay Research Center for 5 years (2010-2015).

Advisors

Marc Goodman

Founder, Future Crime InstituteChair for Policy, Law and Ethics, Singularity University

Marc Goodman is a New York Times best-selling author, global strategist and consultant focused on the profound change technology is having on security, business and international affairs. He is the founder of the Future Crimes Institute and currently serves as the Chair for Policy, Law and Ethics at Silicon Valley’s Singularity University. Over the past twenty years, he has built his expertise in international cyber-crime and terrorism working with organizations such as INTERPOL, the UN Counterterrorism Task Force, NATO and the US Government. Marc holds a MPA from HKS, a Masters from LSE, has served as a Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Stanford’s MediaX Laboratory.

Anja Kaspersen

Head of Strategic Engagement and New TechnologiesInternational Committee of the Red Cross

Since 2017, Director for the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs. Former Head of Strategic Engagement and New Technologies at the International Committee of the Red Cross. Previously with the World Economic Forum as a member of the Executive Committee and Senior Director for Geopolitics and International Security. Former positions include a long and varied career, spanning across the globe, with the Norwegian Government, international organisations, academic research and business.

Arisa Ema

Arisa Ema is Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo and Visiting Researcher at RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project in Japan. She is a researcher in Science and Technology Studies (STS), and her primary interest is to investigate the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence by organizing an interdisciplinary research group. She is co-founder of Acceptable Intelligence with Responsibility Study Group (AIR) established in 2014, which seeks to address emerging issues and relationships between artificial intelligence and society. She is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), which released the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence Society Ethical Guidelines in 2017. She is also one of the organizers of "IEEE Ethically Aligned Design, Version 1 Workshop in Japan" in the spring 2017. She obtained Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 2012 and previously held position as Assistant Professor at the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University.

Sandro Gaycken

Dr Sandro Gaycken is director of the Digital Society Institute at Berlin’s private university ESMT. He has published five scientific monographs, three on cyberwarfare, and more than 60 other publications, is an Oxford Martin School Fellow, a program committee member of the Harvard-MIT workshop series on cyber norms, and an IEEE permanent reviewer. As governmental advisor, he helped to create Germany’s cyber foreign policy strategy, the German MoD’s cyber defense process, the German chancellery’s German-Chinese No-Spy agreement, and serves as expert witness in NATO cyber counterintelligence cases and as director in NATO’s SPS program for national cyberdefense strategies. As industrial advisor, he conducted nine major industry studies, assesses cyber companies for venture capital firms, developed cyber risk assessment methodologies for the insurance market, and an extensive cyber buyer’s guide for SMEs. He also founded cyber companies of his own, including SECURE ELEMENTS Ltd., developing high assurance embedded systems for defense electronics, now a joint venture with Airbus Defense and Space and KKR Holdings. Sandro writes frequent op-eds in newspapers like Handelsblatt, FAZ, Süddeutsche or DIE ZEIT, and comments regularly on media outlets such as CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, Forbes, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired, Vanity Fair or Al Jazeera.

Thomas Wingfield

Professor of Cyber LawNational Defense University

Thomas C. Wingfield is Professor of Cyber Law at National Defense University. He has extensive cyber, rule of law, and outreach experience with developing democracies. He is the co-author of the Tallinn Manual on the law of war in cyberspace, and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009-10 as a Rule of Law Advisor to COMISAF. Professor Wingfield has a strong background in teaching strategy and operations to U.S. military officers, and assisting emerging democracies in refining national strategies for cyber activities, peace operations, defense institution building, and rule of law development. Professor Wingfield’s education included an LL.M. (Master of Laws), with distinction, in International and Comparative Law from Georgetown University; a J.D. (Doctor of Laws) from Georgetown University; and a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts), summa cum laude, with distinction in History from Georgia State University.

Jean-Marc Rickli

Assistant ProfessorDepartment of Defense Studies, King's College London

Jean-Marc Rickli is assistant professor at the Department of Defense Studies of King’s College London and also teaches at the Joaan Bin Jassim Joint Command and Staff College in Doha, Qatar. He is an expert on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament and Research (UNIDIR). In 2015, he testified on the strategic implications of lethal autonomous weapons systems at the Meeting of Experts of the Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) at the United Nations in Geneva. Since 2015, he runs a course on disruptive technologies and future warfare at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) where he is associate fellow. He is also a senior researcher at the Near East Center for Security and Strategy of King’s College and a non-resident fellow in modern warfare and security at TRENDS Research and Advisory in Abu Dhabi. He holds a PhD and an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford University, UK, where he was also a Berrow scholar at Lincoln College.

Lydia Kostopoulos

Professor of Intelligence and CybersecurityInstitute of International and Civil Security

Lydia holds a PhD in Security Policy and is an HKS Cybersecurity Executive Education Alumni. She actively engages the international cyber community on several fronts, participates in NATO’s Science for Peace Program (SPS), teaches intelligence and cyber statecraft, and is a member of the FBI's Infragard Alliance. Her current research centers in the national security ramifications of the intersection between counter-espionage, social engineering and disruptive technologies in cyberspace. In 2014 she received the US Presidential Service Award in recognition of her volunteer work and service to the cyber community.

Manuel Muñiz

Manuel Muñiz is the Dean of the School of International Relations at IE University and the Founding Director of its Center for the Governance of Change, an institution dedicated to studying the challenges posed by accelerated societal and technological change to the public and private sectors and proposing solutions and frameworks to manage these challenges. Dr. Muñiz’s research interests fall within the fields of innovation and disruption, geopolitics, and regional and global governance. He has undertaken research on processes of cooperation and integration in Europe and the North Atlantic with a view to understanding how states tackle interdependence and complexity.
Dr. Muñiz was Director of the Program on Transatlantic Relations at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He is a local affiliate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies and an elected member of the Alumni Board of Directors of the Kennedy School of Government.
The Rafael del Pino Foundation, one of Spain’s leading philanthropic institutions dedicated to nurturing talent through education, created in 2017 a Chair in Global Leadership for Dr. Muniz and also appointed him Director of its Program on Leadership. Dr. Muniz’s work for the Foundation seeks to foster Spanish talent in the field of global affairs through the organization of high-level seminars at Harvard University and the University of Oxford, the arrangement of conferences and lectures in Spain as well as the awarding of fellowships for the funding of study and applied research.
Dr. Muniz holds a JD (Law) from the Complutense University in Madrid, an MSc in Finance from the IEB, a Master in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, and a DPhil (PhD) in International Relations from the University of Oxford. He is also a recipient of a number of awards and recognitions including the Trilateral Commission’s David Rockefeller Fellowship and the Atlantic Council’s Millennium Fellowship. In 2016 he was appointed by Esglobal as one of the 25 intellectuals having the greatest impact on our thinking about Iberoamerica.
During the Spring term of 2017 Dr. Muñiz will teach a course titled Order and Chaos: Diplomacy and Force in a Changing World at Tuft University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, which will examine the rise of populism and its geopolitical consequences.

Stanley S. Byers

Senior Advisor, Technology for Global Security

Stanley S. Byers is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Singularity University Ventures and a Senior Advisor with Technology for Global Security. Stan’s interests include mapping the converging investment and social implications of economic growth, exponential technologies, and cybersecurity threats in emerging markets. He is an expert on sustainable investment and risk in complex markets in Africa, Latin America and Central Asia. He previously served as the lead for economics and development for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the White House National Security Council and was a leader of Ernst & Young’s Cyber Economics team, analyzing the geopolitical and economics aspects of cybersecurity. Other work has focused on global trends in the extractives industry, energy infrastructure investment, and fair trade practices. Stan is also the lead for AI and Emerging Markets with the AI Initiative and Future Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He earned a B.S. in Ecology from Purdue University and an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School with a focus on economics and development.

Frank Escoubes

Co-founder and Executive ChairmanBluenove

Frank Escoubes is the co-founder of bluenove (www.bluenove.com), a consulting and technology firm specialized in open innovation and collective intelligence based in France and Canada. Frank is a former Deloitte Principal. He worked as a strategy consultant for 20 years in Europe and North America, including 8 years with Deloitte in Canada, in charge of Strategy Innovation and Cluster Acceleration. Frank is also the founder of the Social Innovation platform Imagination for People (www.imaginationforpeople.org) aimed at supporting collective intelligence applied to societal issues at a global scale. Frank is focused on new participative business models, innovation-related policy-making, co-design supported by digital platforms and “massive collective intelligence” within business, politics, smart cities and civil society communities. He was a member of the «Paradiso Expert Panel» with the European Commission on the Future of the Internet (Club of Rome) and managed the FP7 European project Catalyst on Collective Awareness platforms. Frank is an Ashoka Fellow (Social Entrepreneurship) and a Royal Society of Arts 21st Century Enlightenment RSA Fellow (UK). He wrote his first novel on the hidden world of corporate whistleblowers.

Daniel Beaulieu

Daniel Beaulieu has launched and led social enterprises and social impact initiatives on three continents. He is currently CCO at News Deeply, which creates digital platforms and online communities to help address undeserved global issues. He was formerly Head of the World Economic Forum's Knowledge Lab and helped lead Forum’s Global Agenda Councils, the world’s largest network of experts dedicated to solving global problems. In 2008, he was a founder of the leading English-language newspaper in the Middle East, The National, and was previously a journalist for the international news agencies AFP and Reuters in the Middle East and Asia. He holds an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School.

Eleonore Pauwels

Eleonore Pauwels is the Director of the AI Lab with the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Wilson Center. She is a writer and international science policy expert, who specializes in the governance and democratization of converging technologies. Leading the AI Lab, Pauwels analyzes and compares how transformative technologies, such as artificial intelligence and genome-editing, raise new opportunities and challenges for health, security, economics and governance in different geo-political contexts. She analyzes the promises and perils that will likely arise with the development of AI civil and military technologies, the Internet of Living Things and future networks of intelligent and connected bio-labs.

August Cole

August Cole is an author and analyst exploring the future of conflict. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council where he directs The Art of the Future Project, which explores narrative fiction and visual media for insight into the future of conflict. He is also writer-in-residence at Avascent, an independent strategy and management consulting firm focused on government-oriented industries. He is a regular speaker to private sector, academic, military, and government audiences. His first book Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War is a collaborative novel written with Peter W. Singer about the future of great power war. He also edited the Atlantic Council science fiction collection, War Stories from the Future. He regularly writes short stories focused on the human elements of conflict amid emergent and disruptive technologies. From 2007 to 2010, August reported on the defense industry for The Wall Street Journal. From Washington, he covered companies ranging from Boeing to Blackwater, as well as broader defense policy and political matters. He is also a former editor and reporter at MarketWatch.com, where he wrote about industries ranging from the Internet economy to airlines and autos to the defense sector. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master in Public Administration degree (Mid-Career MPA program) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Ayesha Khanna

Co-Founder and CEO, ADDO AI

Ayesha Khanna is Co-Founder and CEO of ADDO AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) advisory firm and incubator. She is a strategic advisor on artificial intelligence, smart cities and fintech to clients such as SMRT, Singapore's largest public transport company, SmartDubai, which is transforming the city's governance and service delivery, and YES Bank, one of India's largest banks. In 2017, ADDO AI was featured in Forbes magazine as one of four leading artificial intelligence companies in Asia.
Prior to founding ADDO AI, Ayesha spent more than a decade on Wall Street developing large scale trading, risk management and data analytics systems. Ayesha was co-founder of the Hybrid Reality Institute, a research and advisory group established to analyze the social and economic impact of accelerating technologies. She directed the Future Cities Group at the London School of Economics, and has been a Faculty Advisor at Singularity University.
Ayesha Khanna has a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University, an M.S. in Operations Research from Columbia University and is completing her Ph.D. on smart city infrastructures at the London School of Economics.

J. Mark Munoz

Professor of Management and International Business, Millikin University

J. Mark Munoz is a multi-awarded, tenured full professor and author. A former Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, he pioneered and advanced several management concepts in the areas of Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, Global Business Intelligence, Managerial Forensics, and Artificial Intelligence. He was the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar and Distinguished Business Dean awards granted by the Academy of Global Business Advancement. He has authored and edited more than twenty business books including two books on Artificial Intelligence (with Al Naqvi) titled : Business Strategy in an Artificial Intelligence Economy and The Beaver Bot of Yellowstone. He is currently co-editing the book : Handbook of Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation : Policy and Government Applications

Steven M. Tebbe

Managing Director, CDP Europe

Steven Tebbe is the Managing Director of CDP Europe, the regional hub of a global non-profit helping investors, companies and cities assess their environmental impact and take urgent action to build a truly sustainable economy.
Prior to joining CDP in 2011, Steven held senior management positions at Daimler, Airbus Group and at the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary NetJets, most recently as Vice President for Environmental Affairs.
In 2010, Steven Tebbe co-founded Antural Partners, a boutique consulting and interim management firm specialized in delivering risk management solutions for clients facing complex sustainability challenges.
In his various roles, Mr. Tebbe has contributed to shaping the world’s largest investor initiative on natural capitals, the European Unions’ ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme), REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals), GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) and Air Traffic Management.
Mr. Tebbe holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Master’s degree from the Solvay Business School in Belgium.
He is a Trustee of the Geneva based Live Forum TV Foundation, an advisor to several green tech start-ups and funds, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS) with the Institute of British Geographers, and a long-time member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Calum Chace

Calum Chace is a best-selling writer and sought-after speaker on artificial intelligence. He focuses on the medium- and long-term impact of AI on all of us, our societies and our economies.

His non-fiction books on AI are The Economic Singularity, about the prospect of widespread technological unemployment, and Surviving AI, about strong AI and superintelligence. He also wrote Pandora's Brain, a techno-thriller about the first superintelligence. He runs a blog on the subject at www.pandoras-brain.com.

Before becoming a full-time writer and speaker, Calum had a 30-year career in journalism and business, in which he was a marketer, a strategy consultant and a CEO.

A long time ago, Calum studied philosophy at Oxford University, where he discovered that the science fiction he had been reading since boyhood was actually philosophy in fancy dress.

Research Associates

Jessica Cussins

Director for Research The Future Society

Jessica Cussins is the Director of Research at The Future Society. She graduated in May 2017 with a Master's Degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a concentration in international and global affairs, science and technology policy. She Chaired The Future Society at HKS in the 2016-17 academic year. While at Harvard, Jessica worked as a Research Assistant at the Program on Science, Technology & Society, and was a Belfer International and Global Affairs Student Fellow working within both the cybersecurity and biosecurity programs. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and does consulting work on health data and biotech for several technology think tanks. She writes regularly for outlets including The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, and the Pharmaceutical Journal on the ethical, social, and political implications of consequential emerging technologies. She received her BA with Highest Distinction from the University of California, Berkeley.

Harold Begg

Harold Begg. Harry has been a Research Associate with AI Initiative since March 2017, and is the Michael von Clemm Fellow at Harvard University. A political scientist in-training, his research focuses on the history and politics of governing environmental and technological change. His current work at Harvard concerns the history of antitrust law and technological development in the twentieth-century. Harry has written foreign policy analysis for research organizations, government, and journalists. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from University College London, and took his Bachelors from the University of Oxford.

Brendan Roach

Master in Public Policy candidate

Brendan is pursuing a Master's Degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and will graduate in 2018. Prior to arriving at the Kennedy School, he worked as a consultant for large nonprofits and foundations on a variety of policy areas, mainly around internet access and regulation. He is a Research Assistant at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and the Ash Center for Democratic Innovation and Governance. He received a B.S.F.S. from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Marie-Therese Png

Marie-Therese is a Research Associate with the Future Society, and is Co-Director for the TFS Brain & Cognition Initiative. She recently completed a Master's in Mind, Brain, and Education at Harvard, focusing on the neural underpinnings of racial prejudice and conflict. She completed her undergraduate in Human Sciences at Oxford University in 2016. Marie-Therese has a research background in biotech and gene therapy, and is Board Member at Common Purpose, an international organization specialized in cross-boundary leadership and cultural intelligence. As a mixed Caribbean and Chinese individual in the realm of science and technology, Marie-Therese founded Implikit, a neurotechnology initiative housed under Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab, seeking to decrease implicit racial bias using VR and neuroimaging. At MIT, she is also coordinating the Global BioSummit.

Marwan Kawadri

Marwan is a Research Associate with The Future Society, and a marketplace strategist at Managed by Q, a company at the intersection of emerging technology and the Good Jobs Strategy, with backing from Google Ventures and RRE Ventures.
He graduated from Columbia University, where he studied Economics & Philosophy, as part of the Dual BA with Sciences Po. Marwan conducted research on inductive logic and algorithmic justice, aimed at more effectively transposing moral philosophy to emerging technologies. His interests include artificial intelligence, marketplace strategy, foreign policy and financial markets.

Josephine Png

Josephine is a Research Associate with The Future Society and its AI Initiative, expanding TFS’s Science, Law and Society Initiative, specifically the development of law surrounding artificial intelligence. She graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where she studied Chinese and Law. In addition to working with Jun He Law Office in Beijing, her experiences focus on policy creation, including projects pertaining to the legal reform of China’s detention procedures in light of the abductions of human rights lawyers in 2015, and the reform of marital legislation in China to eradicate misogynistic tendencies. Her most recent endeavor has been to provide legal aid to victims of torture, human trafficking and other forms of extreme cruelty at the Helen Bamber Foundation. Alongside her focus on becoming a lawyer, her interests include ethics, human rights, and policy-making.

Affiliates

Fredrik von Bothmer

LL.M. candidate 2016, The Fletcher School of Law & DiplomacyDoctoral candidate 2016, University of St. Gallen

The advent of a robotic revolution is Fred’s passion. Based on his legal studies in Munich, The Hague, Stellenbosch, Geneva, St. Gallen, Berlin, New York City, and Cambridge (MA) as well as on his personal conviction, Fred believes that the law is instrumental in shaping our future. Since his stay as visiting doctoral researcher at NYU School of Law and now at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (LL.M), Fred is pursuing an interdisciplinary approach to the law. His doctoral thesis establishes a regulatory regime that addresses the difficulties arising from autonomy in weapon systems. Fred is convinced that to strengthen the international legal order, we need to build bridges – both geographically and intellectually – including the cutting-edge challenge of A.I. in robotic systems. Fred is a passionate sailor. He has crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice on a sailing yacht.

Ashley Heacock

Ashley Heacock is interested in the effect AI will have on business, government, society, and the individual – specifically, what the political economy of the future will look like, and how humans will adapt to these changes. Ashley’s background is in international conflict resolution, economic development, politics, and business. She worked on numerous political campaigns and was the campaign manager for a congressional candidate in South Dakota. She also was a researcher at the Fund for Peace on the UN’s genocide prevention program, and led a case study on conflicts in Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey. She advised small enterprises with the Peace Corps in Mali, and later co-founded the company Agro-Industry Development. Combining her subject matter expertise, Ashley founded the consulting company, A.M. International, LLC that works to build partnerships and connections around the world to facilitate understanding, cooperation, and collaboration in business and politics. She produced an online class on the conflict in Mali, wrote two books, Understanding Mali, and One Story of Entrepreneurship in Africa, and won an award for her report on the conflict in Kirkuk, Iraq. She is an MPA/MBA candidate at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and MIT Sloan School of Management, and graduated summa cum laude from The George Washington University with a B.A. in Economics and International Affairs.

Andy Palanysamy

Andy is a seasoned transportation technology, communications, and policy professional with nearly 15 years of experience in the intelligent transportation systems industry. He brings a strong understanding of the connected vehicle technologies gained through his support for the USDOT’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO). In addition, Andy has worked on various innovative connected automation research projects such as Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Speed Harmonization, etc. Andy holds a Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering and is currently pursuing a Mid-career Master in Public Administration degree at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. His interest in operating at the intersection of futuristic technologies and public policies brought him to The Future Society. Andy is keen to help the organization in building programs that enable policy makers to gain an understanding of the role/evolution of technology and its impact on our society, particularly in the mobility/transportation arena.

Hugo Zylberberg

After studying Mathematics, Economics and Computer Sciences in France, Hugo realized that the transformational power of technology sat as much in the political sphere than in the technical sphere. At the Kennedy School, he is concentrating his efforts on the political layer of internet architecture and on power in cyberspace, trying to help figure out which of these architectures enable which systems of values and who has the power to decide. Hugo is also convinced that there is only so much that individuals can do which is why, with the Future Society, he tries to bring awareness of long-term technological problems to his fellow students and equip future policy makers to make better decisions using technology instead of being used by technologists.

Pedro De Abreu

Founder and CEO14X Innovation

Pedro is interested in the intersection of brain, behavior, and technology. He is the founder and CEO of 14x Innovation Group (14X IG), a behavioral insights management consulting firm that helps organizations increase effectiveness through a unique blend of neuroscience, social psychology, and the Harvard Business School case method. Pedro is a Co-Instructor and Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, where he co-teaches Motivation and Learning Theory. He also facilitates the Management Development Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the interfaculty Mind, Brain, and Behavior thesis workshops for Harvard College seniors. Pedro has been appointed South Carolina’s New Century Scholar by USA Today and the Coca-Cola Foundation, and was a Forbes 30 Under 30 finalist in 2016. He is a winner of the Harvard Leadership in Education Award, a TEDMED delegate, Magellan Scholar, Walker Institute Scholar, City of Columbia Fellow, TEDx speaker, Darla Moore Emerging Leader, and the youngest ever-appointed member of the Board of Directors of the Central Midlands Council of Governments. Pedro is the author of an upcoming book (Fall 2017) on Collaboration by Penguin Random House.

Caroline Galvan

Practice Lead, Competitiveness and Risks at World Economic Forum Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government

Caroline is interested in the governance of emerging technologies and how rapid technological change impacts policymaking and societies at large. Before coming to the Kennedy School, Caroline served as content lead and institutional spokesperson of the World Economic Forum’s flagship Global Risks Report series, which discusses the changing global risks landscape across the five areas of the economy, the environment, society, geopolitics and technology, and raises awareness of the potential risks associated with these global evolutions. She is especially passionate about Artificial Intelligence and its implications for mankind. Caroline currently pursues the Mid-Career Master in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a MSc and BSc in International Economics and, in parallel to her interest in emerging technologies, looks back to ten years of professional experience working as an economist on macro-financial linkages and competitiveness at the European Commission, John Howell and Co Ltd, and the World Economic Forum.

Tarig Hilal

Tarig is a policy expert & entrepreneur with a passion for applying emerging technologies to nation building, development, anti-terrorism, conflict prevention & humanitarian crisis. Tarig was a Director at Conflict Dynamics International, has worked for Crisis UK, the International Crisis Group, the World Bank, and the National Democratic Institute. He is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the Harvard John F Kennedy School of Government & the MIT Sloan School of Management. Tarig has lived, worked & travelled across Europe, the United States, the Middle East and East Africa. He is also a TEDx speaker, author & producer of Our Sudan: A Short Film to Inspire a New Generation. He speaks Arabic fluently.

Silvia Hennig

Silvia is passionate about the future of jobs and skills in the digital economy. While spending four years at the European Parliament, working on the EU’s research and innovation policy, she got hooked on the question how emerging technologies impact people’s working lives and their ability to make a living in a rapidly changing economy. At the Kennedy School, she is working on new policy approaches to tackle the challenges that automation and digitization create for labor markets and education systems. In 2016, she spent her summer at Germany’s labor ministry, researching the impact of AI on the workplace and contributing to the ministry’s white paper on the future of work. She is currently a consultant with the OECD’s Higher Ed Department, advising them on adult learning, upskilling, and creating more inclusive higher education systems. She is convinced that we have a choice when it comes to the future of work, but that we need a new mind-set to start reaping the benefits of the technological paradigm shift we’re living through. Rather than thinking of AI as a breaking wave that will sweep millions into unemployment, she prefers to look at it as one of the most sophisticated tools mankind has yet come up with, meaning it’s on us to decide how we want to use it.

Maria Portela

Representing The Future Society at Harvard Kennedy School in Barcelona

Maria has for a long time been fascinated by the cutting edge of technology, where machines and humans cooperate, compete and merge across such varied experiential fields as education, hospitality, tourism, travel and design. She researches and writes about how the latest technological advances can be used to open ourselves to new experiences, enhance the service industry and promote affordable and accessible education. She is curious to see how our relationship to new technologies affects everything from the way we correlate to the way we learn, communicate, think or even eat. Moreover, Maria has worked as an international consultant in the field of guest experience and brand quality for companies in the hospitality industry, helping to provide ever better hospitality and service to both clients and employees. Having graduated with a bachelor’s degree with the highest distinction in architecture, she has over 10 years’ experience in design and project management. A passionate traveler, she has visited over 32 different countries and has lived and worked across the Caribbean, Europe and Asia.

Geoffrey Delcroix

Geoffrey Delcroix is managing innovation and foresight projects within the Department for Technology and Innovation of the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL). The studies, innovation and foresight team identifies and explores emerging trends at the frontier between digital technologies, human rights and ethical issues, and data.

Acting as a point of contacts for innovation ecosystems, the team works with start-ups, labs and academics around those topics.

The team also publishes various works (quantified self, smartphones, connected objects, drones, digital health, big data ...), all available on LINC (https://linc.cnil.fr/), CNIL innovation and future-oriented media.
The team regularly publishes more in-depth studies on a subject of future exploration, the IP reports (to be found in the media library of the CNIL website)

The third issue of these papers, titled "Data, Muses and Borders of Creative arts", dealt with the increasing role of data in the digital transformation of the culturo-ludic sector (Music, video, reading, video games) and the consequences of the passion of these actors for hyper-personalization.

A graduate in political sciences and geopolitics and defense, Geoffrey Delcroix began his career in the Futuribles group, an independent center for study on the contemporary world, as a consultant and researcher. He was then in charge of foresight within the Delegation for prospective and strategy of the french Ministry of the Interior (homeland security) before joining the CNIL in 2011.

Soushiant Zanganehpour

Soushiant is convinced we are at an important evolutionary inflection point about our acceptance of the current social contract and how we organize society. He believes the future will be one where distributed decision-making, decentralization and self-management through the support of AI and other exponential technologies are the norm. He is passionate about the future of governance and organizational innovation. Soushiant is a graduate of Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program, and the founder of Antropy, an operating system providing organizational tools to companies, charter cities and private entities, to help them self-manage without intermediaries. Soushiant is also the founder of Tribeca Impact Partners, a social impact advisory firm helping a range of clients build strategies, programs, business models and investment mandates integrating financial growth with social and environmental performance, as well as raise patient capital for future growth. Soushiant lectures at the Master's level at Sciences-Po in Paris, France (as an adjunct professor), as well as at the Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE, teaching impact investing and business models for social and environmental progress

Soushiant has over 10 years of experience as an entrepreneur, management and strategy consultant, startup advisor and policy analyst working in Canada, the UK, France and the UAE. Soushiant earned his BA in Political Science and International Relations from the University of British Columbia, a Diplôme in International Affairs from Sciences-Po Paris and an MPP (Public Policy & Economics) from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). In 2010, he was awarded a full scholarship by the UK's Foreign Office as one of four Canadian Chevening Scholars for his Masters. In 2016, he attended Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program as a Google scholar.

Katharina Werner

Katharina Werner is a doctoral candidate at the University of Munich and currently a Visiting Fellow at the Program for Education Policy and Governance at Harvard Kennedy School.

Katharina’s main interest is in the way memory and decision-making bias in individuals transcend into collective action and politics. Her research focuses mostly on the role of misconceptions in the political process, specifically related to efforts that aim to reduce educational inequality. Katharina holds two degrees in economics from the University of Cambridge with a specialization in microtheory and networks.

Léa Peersman Pujol

Léa is the founder of the Future of People conference, launched last December at the MIT Media Lab in partnership with The Future Society. The initiative unveils visions on how AI and exponential technologies could be leveraged, by people and organizations, to unlock human potential. Léa is an MBA candidate at MIT, passionate about the people side of the digital transition, and has been leading change in companies and communities through innovative educational and talent management programs for the past 10 years. She brings to the table a diverse background mixing strategic communications & story shaping, complex projects & partnerships development, and a strong focus on social impact & corporate responsibility. As a kickstarter, Léa is great at mobilizing her network from the philanthropic (Head of Education & Communication - Rothschild Foundations), private (L'Oréal, Steelcase, Blippar), and public sectors to advocate for cutting-edge research and out-of-the-box innovation. She focuses on AI & Human potential to enable more people and organizations to better manage careers, purposes, and life paths.

Daniel Faggella

Daniel is the CEO / founder at TechEmergence, the only market research and company discovery platform focused exclusively on artificial intelligence and machine learning.
He sold his first business for six figures, his second business for seven figures - both served as economic fuel for his current endeavor.
Daniel is of the belief that the most important ethical considerations of the coming thirty years will be the creation or expansion of sentience and intelligence in technology. His time is focused exclusively on this major concern. TechEmergence is intended first as a vehicle to proliferate an open-minded conversation about the implications and applications of AI . Business model came later, purpose was and is first.
Occasionally write for: TechCrunch, Boston Business Journal, VentureBeat, Xconomy, VICE MotherBoard, others
Speak at: TEDx, Stanford, Columbia (Paris campus), MIT, Harvard, Brown, others
Read: from Bacon to Bostrom
Fun facts: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt since 2013, 2012 national champion (IBJJF no-gi pan ams)
Location: SF-based, often in the valley, often in Boston

Esam Goodarzy

Esam Goodarzy is a social entrepreneur and effective altruist focusing on projects with far reaching implications on reducing global suffering. In 2010, he set up an organization named BIT whose mission is to identify and support initiatives that promote well-being and reduce hardship as cost-effectively as possible. Since then, he has pledged to give a significant portion of his income towards causes in this space that are especially effective using a framework of “earning to give”. His interests include poverty alleviation, existential risk reduction, artificial intelligence, and global coordination.

Emilia Javorsky MD, MPH

Physician-Scientist

Emilia is focused on the invention, development and commercialization of new medical therapies. At Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, her research focused on the development of novel biocompatible coolants to treat sleep apnea, as well as device-based treatments for peripheral neuropathy. Previously she worked in the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials in dermatology. Emilia was a Fulbright-Schuman scholar to the European Union, where she studied methods of enhancing transatlantic research collaborations and emerging public private partnership models to accelerate medical innovation. She is a TEDx speaker and was honored as part of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2017 in Healthcare.

David Kervin

David Kervin is an award winning technology business leader, having owned and operated businesses in the data science, machine learning, information technology and meta materials sectors.
His background in technology investment in the private equity and venture capital arena focused his passion for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics and other autonomous technologies, with a specific emphasis on the implications of these technologies for National Security.
David is a career Marine who graduated Summa Cum Laude from Norwich University. He is currently an MBA Candidate at the Kenan-Flager school of business at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
David has been a consultant to three "future tech" novels, including "Ghost Fleet", and he enjoys pursuing physically demanding fundraising activities in his free time. David has completed a 100 Kilometer solo race in one day and has summited Kilimanjaro, contributing to over $250K in donations to various children's, veterans and Africa focused charities.

Shuang L. Frost

Ph.D. candidate, Anthropology Department, Harvard University

Shuang L. Frost (卢霜) is a Ph.D. candidate in the anthropology department of Harvard University, studying social anthropology with a secondary field in Science, Technology, and Society. Her dissertation looks at the economic, political, and social impacts of the ride-sharing industry in contemporary urban China. Her broader research interests include digital technology, sharing economy, and corporate governance. She is also interested in exploring the recent development of Artificial Intelligence in China, particularly private corporate participation in this technological revolution and AI’s impact on technological unemployment.

Prior coming to Harvard, Shuang earned her M.A. degree in sociocultural anthropology at Columbia University. In her master’s thesis, she investigated urban crowding, informal housing, and rural-urban migration in Shanghai, China. Shuang completed her B.A. at Shanghai International Studies University.

Shuang is currently a Desmond and Whitney Shum fellow of the Fairbank Center at Harvard University and a fellow in the Institute of Humane Studies.

Shuang recently co-authored a Harvard Business School case study entitled, Uber in China: Driving in the Gray Zone.

Effie Michelle Metallidis

Hollywood RepresentativeThe AI Initiative

Effie-Michelle works at the intersection of storytelling, technology, and public policy. As a journalist, she helped to launch The National in Abu Dhabi in 2008 and continues to work with international clients on issues of governance, innovation, the creative economy, and smart cities. In 2016, Effie-Michelle co-launched Synpraxis, an online digital think tank focused on policy issues in Greece, and has continued to explore future scenarios of technology in several screenplays. She was a 2016 semi-finalist in Sundance's Episode Storytelling Lab, and her writing has been featured in Al Jazeera, PBS/Frontline, and Pangyrus Literary Magazine. Effie-Michelle earned her BS at Harvard University in History and holds a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Alessandra Szul

Alessandra Szulis a native New Yorker who has been passionate about programming from an early age. A graduate of the University of Miami School of Business Applied Computer Information Science program, she is currently working at a Kairos, a leading artificial intelligence and facial recognition firm and maintains active in the blockchain community. She is also manages investments in the healthcare, cosmetic, and technology industry across Latin America and the United States.